


Her I Should Recognize Years Later, Anywhere

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dimension Travel, Getting Together, Gratuitous Russian Endearments, Illyana Rasputina is the Ultimate Sword Lesbian, Kitty Pryde has Two Hands, Multi, Not Cheating, Polyamory, Rachel Grey is the Best Telepath Girlfriend, established Kitty Pryde/Rachel Summers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27576919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: Kitty Pryde is a teacher at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, an X-Man and Rachel Grey's girlfriend - in short, her life couldn't be better.But when Illyana Rasputina from an alternate reality stumbles into their way and starts making some pretty obvious advances at Kitty, things get... complicated.
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin/Rachel Summers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Secret Mutant Madness 2020





	Her I Should Recognize Years Later, Anywhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [citrinesunset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrinesunset/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [citrinesunset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrinesunset/pseuds/citrinesunset) in the [secret_mutant_madness_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/secret_mutant_madness_2020) collection. 



> All my thanks to the lovely [FlightInFlame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame) for the beta!  
> Title courtesy of Adrienne Rich's poem [Sisters](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=101&issue=4&page=6).  
> Please don't kill me in case the Russian terms of endearments aren't flawless. I am but a simple mortal upon whom googling was bestowed as the primary means of research.
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> Kitty is dating either Rachel or Illyana when suddenly, a version of the other one from the future/a different timeline shows up and insists that *she* is Kitty's partner. Fortunately, Rachel and Illyana understand that this is a hazard of being a time traveler.

Kitty Pryde was having a good day.

It was the weekend – time to relax from teaching cheeky pre-teens all day long, time to hop onto Rachel’s motorbike, sling her arms around her girlfriend’s waist and whoop into her ear as they drove down to the Titicus Reservoir’s bathing area, a yapping Lockheed hot on their heels. This year’s September was unusually warm, inviting road trips and whole days spent down by the water. Splashing through the blue cool, feeding Rachel mirabelles from the last crate of the season, watching her girlfriend’s skin tan beneath the gentle touch of the sun – Kitty could not have imagined a better life as a teacher and X-Man at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

She was yet to know that by the time midnight rolled around, she would have acquired a second alternate reality girlfriend, and that her day would have gone from good to better.

The wind tousled her hair. The engine of Rachel’s lipstick-red motorbike roared with power as they zipped past the trees lining the lane which lead up to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and beneath her hands, Kitty felt the sun-drenched warmth of Rachel’s midriff as she gripped her girlfriend tightly around her waist. Lockheed, shrieking with joy, had long since overtaken them.

 _You know_ , Kitty grumbled through their psy link when Rachel leaned into an especially risqué curb at 60 mph, _if I couldn’t phase us when we crash, I’d never ride with you._

 _Sweetie-_ Rachel’s tummy quivered in a barely contained laugh- _I’m telekinetic – I never crash._

Kitty just pushed a happy sigh and pressed her face into Rachel’s shoulder to breathe in her girlfriend’s familiar scent of hot leather, gasoline and roasted almonds.

They were about a hundred feet from reaching the wrought-iron gates of the School when Rachel abruptly stepped on the brakes and slowed to a walking pace. Kitty looked up from where she had been watching the trees blur into a wall of green. Rachel was staring at a spot somewhere above them, mouth agape and green eyes blazing with telekinetic energy building up behind them.

“Why are we stop-?”

And then she saw it.

Just in front of the school gates, about six feet off the ground, the air was oscillating wildly, shimmering like dragonfly wings. Lockheed was perched in the branches of a nearby beech, hissing and with bristling scales. For a few heartbeats, a portal sizzled into being, before it winked out of existence again with a sparkle and a small _plop_.

“What the-?” Rachel muttered and killed the engine.

“I’m calling the X-Men.” A sudden burst of adrenaline making her fingers twitch, Kitty pulled the water-, fire- and radiation-proof comm link she always carried around out of her jacket pocket. “ _Something’s_ clearly trying to come through from _somewhere_ , and I’m not in the mood for having the kids clean the garden from weird alien plasma _again_.”

“You always say that-” Rachel pulled her helmet off and hung it over the handles of her bike before she dismounted and warily approached the flickering spot of air- “and we _still_ end up with alien goo all over our-”

A stepping disk tore the fabric of reality apart, and a figure in a black crop top and with a big-ass shining sword fell through and hit the ground with a grunt.

Kitty shrieked. Then, she cursed. The comm link had tumbled from her hand and down into the ditch to the left of the road – at least it seemed like whoever had just stumbled through a portal in front of them was still knocked out by the journey.

“Kate, don’t,” Rachel said when Kitty clambered off the bike and scrambled for the comm link, but she didn’t move from where she was eyeing the teleporting intruder warily.

Their breathing was laboured, as though they had just run a long distance, and their jet-black leather combat gear was covered in reddish dust. A long mane of blonde, straight hair cascaded over their face, from which only a pair of piercing blue eyes was visible through the strands. Slowly, they got to their elbows and knees and reached for the glowing sword lying beside them.

“Don’t move,” Rachel was saying, “or I’ll telepathically scramble your brains,” but Kitty could see that the person with the sword was paying no attention to her. Their eyes had zeroed in on Kitty’s.

“Katya,” they breathed at last, lending such an intense note of yearning to this one single word that Kitty felt her heart grow heavy. Lockheed, too, had noticed a change in the air – twittering in excitement, he let himself fall out of the tree and swooped low over the blonde intruder’s head.

Kitty had heard that voice before. A long time ago, the one to whom it belonged to had sacrificed herself to save the Earth, never to see the light of the sun again or feel the press of a loved one’s lips. Kitty had that very day jotted down as one of the worst in her whole life.

“Illyana,” she whispered, comm link forgotten in the grass, and then the air was knocked out of her as Illyana disregarded all of Rachel’s threats and bounded over to wrap Kitty up in a crushing hug.

Tears sprang into Kitty’s eyes – not because of the dust which seemed to cover every inch of Illyana’s clothes and skin, not because she admittedly smelt like she hadn’t seen a shower in weeks, let alone a bath, but because this was _Illyana_. Illyana, warm and alive and giggling like a little girl, lifting Kitty up like she weighed nothing.

“ _Lyubimaya_ _moya_ , it is really you,” Illyana gasped, her Russian accent heavier than Kitty remembered it. “You are as beautiful as ever, _koshechka_.”

Had they met under different circumstances, Kitty probably would have frowned at the endearments. They had never been more than very close friends to each other – sisters, united by their fight for the same cause, the same dream. Today, however, she just bit her lower lip to keep from crying and hugged Illyana back tightly.

“’Yana,” she rasped, sending Rachel a watery smile of reassurance over Illyana’s shoulder, “I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’m here, my love, _zvezda_ _moya_ ,” Illyana said – and then, she cupped Kitty’s face in both hands and brought their lips together in a kiss.

Rachel shouted, and Kitty gasped and phased through Illyana’s grasp, only returning to her solid form when she had brought a good five feet of distance between her and the teleporter. Rachel was by her side immediately, fuming as she checked her over swiftly for any injuries.

“If that bimbo hurt you, I’ll crush her,” she growled, red-hot anger and worry rolling off her in waves.

“I’m alright, I’m fine,” Kitty said, heart still going a mile a minute, and brushed a reassuring hand over Rachel’s arm. Then, she turned back to Illyana. “Whyever the hell did you do that?”

Slowly, Illyana glanced from her to Rachel. Finally, her expression hardened, and she went to pick up her sword – her soulsword, Kitty remembered – and folded her hands over its hilt as its tip made the concrete beneath it sizzle. She jutted her chin at Rachel. “Who is she?”

“This is Rachel Grey.” Kitty demonstratively took Rachel’s hand and squeezed it once. “My girlfriend.”

Blue eyes blazing, Illyana sniffed, “Which reality is this?”

Kitty looked at Rachel, and Rachel looked at Kitty. Their eyebrows rose in confused unison.

“Uh, Earth?” Rachel turned to Illyana – not _their_ Illyana, Kitty was starting to realise. “Like, if you’re talking in Multiverse terms, it’s Earth-113. Why, where’re you from?”

Illyana stared at them for a long minute before she said, in an eerily even voice, “Earth-171. You were _my_ girlfriend there, Katya.”

“Damn,” whispered Rachel, and Kitty could only agree.

Illyana snuck a glance at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters behind the wrought-iron gates – overgrown with ivy and vines which were starting to loose their orange and yellow leaves, it struck an imposing figure in the carmine light of the sunset – before she smiled down at Lockheed, who had come to sniff her combat boots and was now chittering in confused recognition. “Hey there.”

Rachel’s elbow softly dug into Kitty’s side. _What’re we gonna do with her? She looks like she’s been through hell._

 _Yeah. Literally._ Kitty sighed. It was true – this Illyana was hardened, with bulging upper arms, unkempt hair and lines of sorrow and defeat carved into her once angelic face. She could not have been more different from the sweet, unbeaten girl they had lost so many years ago.

 _She also_ desperately _needs a bath_ , Rachel decided, and out loud she said, “Hey. You need somewhere to crash for the night?”

Illyana squinted at her and scowled.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes – or a no, I really don’t care.” Mind apparently made up, Rachel walked over to her bike and pushed it towards the gates which screeched softly on their hinges as they opened. “You coming, Kittycat?”

“Sure. Just a min’.” Kitty finally picked up her comm link and beckoned for Lockheed to fly to her side, which he promptly did. Then, she looked at Illyana. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay? The nights can get pretty fresh around here, and there’s no motel or anything for a few dozen miles.”

“You do not love me,” said Illyana, and it was not a question.

Kitty shrugged. “I mean, you haven’t been around for a pretty long time…”

“No. I understand.” Illyana watched Rachel walk up the driveway, in her red leather jacket and with her copper hair cut short, her whole body like liquid flame in the evening glow. “She is beautiful – angry, but beautiful. You have chosen well.”

“Thank you.”

And then, Kitty didn’t know what more to say. So, she gave Illyana one last apologetical smile before she turned and hurried after her girlfriend.

Lockheed, perched on her shoulder, cooed in distress. His claws dug sharply through the thin fabric of Kitty’s jacket and into her shoulder as he craned his neck to watch Illyana’s receding figure.

“Good boy,” Kitty murmured, though her own heart was heavy with worry, too. “She’ll be alright.”

Rachel had already disappeared in the garage by the time Kitty reached the School’s front door. She was just putting her hand on Lockheed’s back to phase them both, when the air beside her sizzled and Illyana appeared out of the glow of her stepping disc.

Lockheed purred in excitement and slipped out from under Kitty’s hand in favour of clambering onto Illyana’s head.

“Hey,” Kitty breathed, unable to stop the smile spreading on her lips. “Changed your mind?”

Slumping against the doorframe, Illyana pushed a sigh which sounded like she hadn’t slept in ten days. Lockheed was starting to lovingly chew on her fringe.

“Your Earth got Lucky Charms?”

The children were in bed. The lights were out, and most of the teachers had retired to their rooms for the night. Only a few stragglers had been cleaning up popcorn and sprite puddles left by the weekly Movie Night when Kitty had climbed the stairs to hers and Rachel’s shared rooms.

Now, she emerged from the shower, wrapped a towel around her hair which was already starting to curl again and put her Star of David necklace back on. Steam billowed out behind her when she opened the bathroom door and stepped out, swathed in her bathing gown with strawberry print.

Rachel looked up from where she was flopped on the bed, a dog owner magazine in front of her nose. “You always look like a lobster when you get out of the shower, and you still don’t turn down the heat. Why? What are you, some kind of masochist?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, _mistress_?” Kitty grinned and leaned down to peck both corners of Rachel’s mouth, then shrieked when Rachel plunged her hand into her décolleté and grabbed a handful of her tits.

Five minutes later, Kitty’s towel was laying forgotten on the floor, and Rachel was leaving a string of searing kisses down her neck and over her collarbone. Telekinetic touches ghosted all over her body, slipped under her bathrobe, made her squirm in anticipation.

And just as Kitty got ready to take the lead and flip them over, Rachel sat up with a gasp.

“I think,” she whispered, “we forgot something.”

Kitty was up and pulling her bathing gown back on before she could form a coherent thought. “What is it? Did we leave the stove on? The Blackbird? Is one of the kids manifesting chaos magic or is the Prof being possessed again? No, wait, I know.” She pointed at Rachel, triumphant. “Magneto is kidnapping him. Y’know. “Kidnapping” him.”

Rachel sighed as Kitty wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Please, no, don’t make this about Charles’ sex life – I have enough nightmares as it is already. It’s about your interdimensional girlfriend.”

“My what now?” Kitty felt the tips of her ears reddening.

“Illyana.” Eyes far away on the psionic plane, Rachel squinted. “She is… currently threatening Cypher with a spoon.”

Kitty sighed. “I’ll get it.” And before Rachel could offer to go with her, she had slipped through the floor and the room below and then through the floor again, before she solidified on the ground floor.

The sconces were casting a low golden glow over the woodwork of the corridor, and Douglas Aaron Ramsey’s face was as pale as the moon when he shrieked and jumped a good three feet backwards. “Jesus, Kitty-”

“Oops, sorry.” She cast a quick glance at the blue-eyed, blond boy and found him uninjured, then looked over at the open kitchen door from which bright light spilled forth. “I heard you were having an encounter in the kitchen.”

“Oh, yeah, about that.” Doug took her by the arm and steered her out of hearing distance of the kitchen before he leaned in to whisper into her ear, “What exactly is she doing here? Who is she? Did you and Rachel… y’know?”

Kitty frowned. “Did Rachel and I what?”

“She looks a big deal like Illyana, you know, and I thought…” Smiling helplessly, Doug shrugged. Beneath his pyjama shirt, a dark mass of wires and circuits stirred and glid over his right arm. A single eye on a stalk popped forth and blinked at Kitty once.

“Hello, Warlock,” she sighed and grinned when the eyestalk was joined by an excited exclamation mark. Then, she looked back at Doug and scowled. “ _What_ did you think?”

He gulped. At last, he leaned in again and whispered in the lowest whisper to have ever been whispered, “Did you, uh, hire a shapeshifting prostitute?”

Kitty heroically resisted the urge to slap one of her best friends, who had stuck with her through her teenage years until now, and instead sent him a death glare. Sometimes, despite being literally able to speak and understand every single language, Douglas Aaron Ramsey was too dense for his own good.

“Are you daft?” she hissed, seething, and before he could even so much as open his mouth, she wagged a warning finger at him. “And no, don’t you dare blame it on That One Time with Mystique. Dude, you’re getting too paranoid.”

“I’m not blaming it on That One Time with Mystique,” Doug grumbled, but it read clear as day on his face that he was doing just that.

“Sure, chum.” Gently, Kitty grabbed him by his shoulders and turned him into the direction of the stairs. “And now scuttle, or I tell the Prof about that vore thing you and Warlock got going on.”

Paling even further, Doug did as he was told and disappeared up the stairs without another word.

Kitty let out a relieved breath. Then, she turned to the kitchen door and strode inside.

The first thing she registered was that Lockheed had gotten into the cat food drawer again, and she cursed and went to pull him out, when she registered the second thing – which was Illyana, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table with a gallon of milk beside her and a package of cereal on her lap. She was eating it straight from the carton with her bare hands.

“Uh,” said Kitty. Lockheed used her moment of confusion and slithered out of her grasp and onto the floor. Illyana just continued shoveling the sugary sweetness into her mouth, apparently determined to consume as much as she could before she would inevitably be sent on her way.

Fortunately for the School’s olfactory environment, Kitty had immediately handed Illyana a towel and a block of soap and sent her off to the communal showers as soon as they had set foot into the entrance hall. It had proven to be a great improvement – during the weekly Movie Night, none of the students had complained that the grim-looking lady hogging an armchair in the corner was smelly, and Illyana had indeed started to look a lot more human. The crimson dust she had been covered with had vanished, save for a few remnants under the edges of her fingernails, and been replaced by the pallor of her skin which was marred in various places by big and small scars. Her blonde hair descended in a gentle slope over her shoulders and down to her hips, where it ended in irregular hacked-off strands, and she was swathed in a fluffy and slightly overlarge white bathrobe.

The tiles of the kitchen counter were cool under Kitty’s hands when she leaned back against it and watched Illyana eat. It twisted something bittersweet in her chest – the sight of her teenage crush, alive and well, all grown up, and beautiful on top of everything. Not for the first time since Illyana had told them she was not from their reality, Kitty wondered at what she might have been through. A war. A genocide. A global mass extinction.

Hell.

“So,” Illyana muttered between two handfuls of Lucky Charms, keeping her eyes lowered, “you have more than three Wars of Stars movies here?”

Kitty crossed her arms over her chest – there was a draft, and her wet hair was making her shiver. This Movie Night’s chosen film had been Rogue One. “Yep, we do, except that we call them Star Wars. Six- No, wait, eight new ones, if you wanna count the spin-offs.”

Illyana hummed. Then, just as Kitty went to grab a spoon and a bowl because she was experiencing a sudden craving for cereal, she said matter-of-factly, “And I am not your lover.”

Oh, she should have seen that coming. Still, it hurt – Kitty thought of Rachel waiting in their room, in her silly Scrappy Doo shirt with the hole in the collar and her satin panties whose lace rims she had chopped off because they didn’t look androgynous enough, and held on to the warmth which bloomed in her chest at the thought.

“You’re not,” she sighed at last, avoiding Illyana’s piercing gaze.

“Where am I?”

Kitty could have deliberately misunderstood this question. She didn’t.

“You’re gone. Eleven years ago, there was an invasion of Hellish Forces – you dragged them back to where they came from, then told us to close the portal behind you. We did, and the Professor hasn’t been able to make telepathic contact since.”

Illyana nodded and said nothing. On the floor to Kitty’s feet, Lockheed had curled up into a ball of whining misery.

“And where-” Kitty took a deep breath, steeled herself and began anew, “And where am I? In your world?”

The kitchen window creaked as an icy breeze rustled through the fallen leaves outside. Illyana’s glacier gaze sent a shiver down Kitty’s spine when they finally locked eyes.

“You died this morning, in front of my eyes,” Illyana rasped. “They had come for us – the last survivors of the techno-organic apocalypse – and you tried to save a human child. They caught us unawares, tore you apart before could phase, and I could not stay anymore. Escaped through the wasteland, and then teleported.”

Kitty’s throat constricted painfully. “And now you’re here,” she whispered.

“And now I’m here.” The kitchen table creaked in agony as Illyana unfurled herself and hopped down onto the tiled floor. Kitty tried not to stare at her long, pale legs which stuck out bare and muscular from under her bathing gown. “I know I will have to stop running one day, but this is not the one.”

“Sure. Yes. We all do,” Kitty muttered, far too mesmerized by the liquid way in which Illyana moved – like a predator, like a beautiful beast intent in its want.

Lockheed chirped and skittered off across the kitchen floor and out the door, but Kitty barely noticed. Illyana was here now, directly in front of her, trapping her against the kitchen counter with her arms at both sides of Kitty’s hips. Her eyes were very blue, and her lips very red. Kitty didn’t notice the draft anymore – she felt hot, sticky almost, feverish from Illyana’s closeness.

“Katya. _Moya_ _koroleva_ ,” Illyana whispered, the scent of artificial saccharine and almond soap clinging to her voice. Her fingers, warm and strong, came to clasp Kitty’s wrist in a secure grip and bring it up for her lips to press gentle kisses on the sensitive skin.

Kitty shivered, cheeks flushing. She should have phased – should have become intangible and slipped right through Illyana’s grasp, leaving her behind in the kitchen in order to climb the stairs and bury under the covers with Rachel, her girlfriend, the woman she loved, the one who had stuck around whenever Kitty just needed someone to hold her. And yet, she didn’t. She let Illyana mouth at the warmth of her skin, let her lock eyes with Kitty and murmur, “You taste just the same in every reality.”

Because it felt right. Because it did not diminish her love for Rachel, not one bit.

“Can I… Can I touch your arms?” she whispered, feeling her flush travel all kinds of places.

Illyana smirked knowingly. “In my world, you asked just the same – every day. Go ahead.”

And Kitty did. She concentrated and phased her hands, then reached directly through the fabric of Illyana’s bunched-up sleeves. Beneath her fingertips, Illyana’s biceps bulged, hard like steel.

Kitty’s breath stuttered. Gosh, this was making her knees go weak.

“Dearheart,” Illyana breathed, grabbed the backs of Kitty’s thighs and hoisted her up onto the kitchen counter to stand between her legs. “One kiss, I beg you.”

Kitty hesitated. Rachel… Rachel wouldn’t mind, not really. She had always been secure in her knowledge of Kitty’s love.

Gently, she cupped Illyana’s face in her hands and pressed close-mouthed kiss to her lips. And then another one, and another one, and when Illyana buried her hand in Kitty’s drying curls and nudged her lips apart with her tongue, she didn’t object.

Soft and sugary with the remnants of cereal, Illyana’s lips moved against hers. Kitty moaned at the heat it kindled deep in her belly, between her legs, her body reacting on instinct, and then she had her knees bent and wrapped around Illyana’s waist. Illyana growled into the kiss, one hand slithering around Kitty’s waist to cup her bum and squeeze it gently, once, before she took one of Kitty’s hands and guided it to her crotch.

Kitty phased her fingers through Illyana’s bathing gown – and gasped. Illyana smirked into the kiss before she drew away and murmured, “No one told me where panties are.”

“Illyana…” Kitty leaned back but did not phase out of Illyana’s grasp. “We’re taking this too far.”

“No no, go on,” said Rachel leaning against the kitchen table, and Kitty shrieked and phased through the kitchen counter. Illyana spun around, conjuring up her soulsword out of thin air even before she saw who had spoken. The pale light of the blade pouring over her face, Rachel smirked. “Oh, shame. It was _just_ getting interesting.”

“Rachel,” gasped Kitty and extricated herself from the sink before she returned to solid. “I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have-”

“Hun, I’m not _blind_.” Rachel set the bowl she had been eating cereal from – silent like a ninja, Kitty hadn’t even heard her crunch – on the kitchen table and crossed her arms over her chest. “The way she looked at you, the way you looked at her… and I know you love me.”

“I do,” Kitty reassured without thinking, then frowned. “So you’re okay with me… making out with an alternate-reality Illyana?”

Rachel shrugged. “It’s like you have a kink for time travelers and dimension hoppers and I should probably find that weird, but yes.”

Finally, Illyana took down her sword and folded it away into the fabric of reality. Then, she extended a hand to Rachel. “You are very honorable. Thank you.”

“Why, you’re welcome,” Rachel purred and winked at Kitty over Illyana’s shoulder. “In fact, why don’t you come up to our room? I’m sure you don’t have toys where you come from.”

“Toys…?” Illyana’s eyes swiveled back to Kitty, unsure.

One last time, Kitty looked to Rachel for confirmation. When she got it, she took Illyana’s hand and smiled sweetly at her.

“I take it the apocalypse happened before vibrators got popular?”

The morning breeze tapped softly against the windowpane. Outside, an American redstart was warbling the blushing autumn day forth, and Kitty hummed softly as she buried further into her pillow.

It was the weekend – time to relax from teaching cheeky pre-teens all day long. Time to enjoy a slow Sunday morning, with breakfast in bed and gratuitous making out sessions in-between bites. Time to stay nestled between her two girlfriends until sundown, warm and comfortable and safe.

Snuggled against Kitty’s right side, Illyana moaned softly in her sleep. Sometimes, she still had nightmares from before she had decided to stay with them until a different path would reveal itself to her. She would wake up in the night, keening in distress, and only Kitty’s murmured words of comfort and Rachel’s soft touches could soothe her back to sleep.

To Kitty’s left, Rachel slept and snored. Her short ginger hair stuck up in all directions, and there was a thin trail of saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. She was beautiful in the golden glow of the first morning light.

On the windowsill, Lockheed purred. Kitty smiled and stretched lazily.

It was going to be a great day.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and especially comments are very much appreciated :)


End file.
